Stuff I’ve Written

Following the FCC’s repealing of net neutrality, brands and advertisers are left questioning the consequences to their business models.

The ‘information superhighway’ is an analogy often used to describe the Internet, and advertisers could probably find answers by looking at actual highways. The outdoor advertising model has many analogues we can extend to the potential future state of digital advertising.

City roads tend to have traffic, and outdoor ads are plentiful and even mock the slowness of bumper to bumper congestion. Freeways, in contrast, deal with faster-moving traffic and billboards are farther spaced, except in areas prone to congestion. And then there are tollways, which probably deal with reduced traffic at the expense of more premium placements.

What does this mean for digital ads?

In a world where consumers travel at varying speeds and frustration levels, advertisers need to be aware of the context in which their ads are being served.

A low-bandwidth consumer, for example, probably doesn’t want to wait for your ad to load that perfect animation. The quest for creative perfection can end up carrying numerous negative side effects on how your brand is perceived.

In contrast, a fibre-connected consumer on the fast lane may be able to opt out of advertising entirely. This scenario could make brands struggle with ways to intersect affluent users, for example, in meaningful ways beyond a purely opt-in based method like e-mail or a like/follow.

If the ‘level playing field’ of Internet bandwidth were eradicated, it would force advertisers to consider new levels of nuance in their marketing strategies. We’re no longer concerned with simply reaching the “right person, right place, right time,” but also needed to be aware of and respect their load time in ways similar to the early days of the Internet.

Remember Flash preloaders? They became wonderful instruments for agencies to win creative awards at the expense of making consumers wait for minutes (!) while a brand website loaded.

Imagine situations like that, compounded by varying degrees of load time based on socio-economic factors, and you’ve got an entirely new dimension to consider in your enterprise marketing approach.

With 4K TVs on the rise, enhanced picture quality is of marginal interest for most people. However, the enhanced resolution makes 4k TVs much better-suited to computing displays with their greater pixel density and razor-sharp typography.

Why would you hook up a desktop to one? You probably wouldn’t. Directly, at least.

With the prevalence of streaming boxes, however, a sophisticated home media experience can be a reality for everyone. Hardcore geeks have been stitching together custom solutions for juggling videos, gaming, music, and apps for quite some time. But it’s a frustratingly manual process that needs constant tinkering to keep things working smoothly.

Now, all the major players – Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Roku – have 4k streaming capability with growing user bases and usage. Walled gardens persist with each one having its own ecosystem, but a few of them are finally starting to play nice with one another (I’m looking at you, Amazon and Apple) to allow consumer choice.

And that’s where desktops, the grandfather of modern-tech, can become the dark horse.

With each major player having their own proprietary streaming approach, consumers face a fork in the road – going deeper into a single ecosystem or mixing and matching for greater control and flexibility.

In this mobile- and cloud-based era, desktops have struggled to find a role for most people outside of gamers or professionals. But what if the desktop moved off the desk and became the centre of your streaming universe?

Desktop software is readily available to make your PC stream your favourite movies, apps, and even games to other devices. Imagine a home server where you can stream Blu-ray quality video, browse the open web, or join the #pcmasterrace for gorgeous 4k gaming.

And at the dawn of a $1,000+ smartphone era, desktops might be a more affordable solution to lighten the load on your pocket in every sense of the word.

In the first of a series, The Chicago Egotist connected with Azher Ahmed, EVP and Director of Digital at DDB Chicago to find out what big trends, ideas and challenges he sees ahead for 2017.

He has a lot of interesting and inspiring thoughts. Read below:

Q: When you look back at 2016, what marketing initiative most impressed you – most made you think, “I wish I did that.” And why?

Ahmed: I was really impressed by BBDO’s “Evan” work for Sandy Hook Promise:
They pulled off a very Sixth Sense-esque narrative, but what’s interesting is that the structure itself was so appropriate for the message.

Q: What are you most excited about for 2017 in the digital space/marketing space? What technology or platform do you think will break through? AI, VR, others?

Ahmed: There are many things to be excited about, but I think voice interaction will finally come of age in the next year. Alexa, Siri, Google, Microsoft…all of them are playing in the space and getting more and more usable. I feel like all the “big data” marketers have been sitting on will ignite useful ways for people to use the technology. Personally, I’d like to ask Siri where I could get some Starburst as my 4-year old seems to want one every other hour.

Q: What kind of marketing opportunities do you see with the growing array of AI personal devices like Alexa and Cortana?

Ahmed: Your marketing is far more than your advertising. Once companies put some emphasis around making their offering data (product data + service data) available to new interaction points (including voice, but also things like chatbots and deeper search integration with structure data ala Google), they’ll be surprised as to how much more they can sell once their “virtual” availability kicks up.

Q: What platform do you think has the most challenges for marketers in 2017 and why?
Ahmed: Every platform has challenges but I think participation in social continues to be a barrier for many brands. Mostly because the platforms themselves flip between treating brands like everyone else (i.e, creating “presence”) and simply inserting them in between user content (i.e. SnapAds). It will continue to be difficult for brands to build up in-house capabilities because you don’t know who’s house you’re going to be in, and I don’t expect that to be resolved anytime soon.

Q: What are the biggest challenges your agency faces in keeping pace with digital evolution?

Ahmed: Commoditization. We live in an era where you can nearly auto-generate a decent-looking ad and the question of “good” is so variant that I’m sure marketers, large and small, will employ these automations in some way. That leaves larger agencies going back to the core of what makes them work – creative human beings – who can cut through that clutter. And selling in that value is getting more and more difficult with the flood of cheaper content out there.

Q: What are your strategies for recruiting best in class digital talent? Where do they come from? Do you provide training? What are the most important skills for incoming talent?

Ahmed: I’m a firm believer that good talent is drawn to other talent. So doing what you do, and transparent management, and enabling creativity is vital to any organization – large or small. We’re really focusing on bringing in talent from all corners of the human spectrum and to quote Wendy Clark, our North America CEO, our organization must represent and employ talent as diverse as the marketplace we serve. Digitally, speaking, that means we’re hiring natives. People who are naturally curious about how people are connecting and strive to stay at the forefront of it – be it consumer device usage, third-party platforms or how to make something.

DDB Chicago’s Azher Ahmed shares his anti-predictions that don’t have a prayer in the next 12 months

It’s the season of predictions and when it comes to digital and tech, there are as many hits as there are misses. Since this was a year full of surprises and upsets, let’s look at some anti-predictions that don’t have a prayer in the next 12 months, if at all. But who knows? If 2017’s as crazy as 2016 was, some may actually come true.

1. Virtual reality will arrive in everyone’s home and we’ll be enamoured by the immersive, interactive experience. This will lose some of its attractiveness when people become used to it and start walking around in virtual worlds staring into their virtual smartphones.

2. After the popularity of their Spectacle vending machines, Snapchat will spin off a Snapvend division. The most popular products will be lightning cables, Skittles, and of course weird-looking glasses that upset strangers because they’re being broadcast without consent or a royalty fee (see: Google Glass).

3. Big data will finally be more than a security blanket with dashboards nobody ever reads. Companies will stop hoarding vast stockpiles of information and actually connect it in meaningful, measurable ways to drive informed decisions.

4. Brands will finally figure out how to leverage online influencers and we’ll see a huge spike in content partnerships with them. This will leave their follower bases feeling much like a rented e-mail list so they’ll simply opt out after one too many selfies with BOGO coupons.

5. Amazon delivery drones will get into a war with Amazon inventory robots. It’ll be like the latest Terminator movie, only shorter and more interesting.

6. Live steaming will be huge. People will rush to tap and view what crazy things their favourite cereal brand is streaming next. “Love versus Like” participation will keep people engaged all year long.

7. The fake news phenomenon will be solved by some 12-year-old wiz kid. However, three days later, we’ll realise it’s no different from how we found a solution for email spam or getting first-page results in search (spoiler alert: there aren’t any silver bullets).

8. Brands will finally find a way to get users to open their branded mobile app regularly, without a direct or indirect bribe.

9. Personalization will actually be more than data-driven “Mad Libs.” Creative ways to connect with consumers and drive relevance will evolve beyond “Hi, First Name.”

10. Google will finally figure out social. Google+ will get a major upgrade and people will flock to it, expanding far beyond the current Zuckerberg-hating core.

11. After growing tired of constant moderation and censorship, social media trolls will create a new startup called Trollr. You heard it here first from me. (Don’t forget it!) But they’ll be forced to close their doors after realising advertisers “ain’t got time for that.”

12. Uber will offer a self-driving vehicle option to the masses that has seven times the surge charge. People will be delighted by the chance to incoherently ramble their home address using Siri-like voice commands at 3 a.m.

13. Apple will win back die-hard nerds. The lost children of Woz will finally get their badly needed hardware upgrades to desktop and laptops and all will be right with the neglected OSX followers.

14. Speaking of Apple, the new iPhone 8 will be released, and people will applaud the courageous move away from lightning cables to USB-C for the next two to three hardware revisions until something better comes along.

15. A non-techie will drink Soylent, cough while gagging, close it up and drop it into the trash. Just imagine how astronauts feel.

16. People will give up on ad blockers because they’ll finally understand advertiser subsidies pay for their “free” content. Marketers will high-five one another as click-throughs skyrocket to three percent.

17. Machine learning, combined with data-driven personalization, will automatically generate lists like this. And you can have Alexa or Siri read them to you while you figure out your next career move.

Consumer media is more vast, variant and uncontrolled as it’s ever been. Let’s review and discuss the ways organizations – large and small – are harnessing this chaos to drive growth and maintain relevance.

Who’s Azher?

A business leader who's built and grown modern marketing capabilities (read: tech- & data-infused) for large agencies and their clients including FCB, Arnold, The Martin Agency and currently DDB. If you’d like to learn more, tap here.

Who’s Azher?

A business leader who's built and grown modern marketing capabilities (read: tech- & data-infused) for large agencies and their clients including FCB, Arnold, The Martin Agency and currently DDB. If you’d like to learn more, tap here.

A business leader who's built and grown modern marketing capabilities (read: tech- & data-infused) for large agencies and their clients including FCB, Arnold, The Martin Agency and currently DDB. If you’d like to learn more, tap here.